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I’m a little nervous about this, but here is the nerdiest thing I have ever done.
You realize that bar is already pretty high. I have programmed web games.
I have
considered domain name availability before naming my offspring.
But this is the first time I have publicly released a version control system history
of a book.

I just lost you. I realize that. Unless you are some kind of freako super-geek, in which
case, welcome to the tiny minority of the human race that may appreciate this.
The rest of you: a revision control system is usually used for writing software,
and tracking the changes you make. I used one of these for the
Machine Man serial, since I was uploading a page per day, and it
needed to be processed for sending out to people’s email inboxes and cell phones,
and I lost you again, didn’t I? Okay.

The point is I have the entire edit history of Machine Man all the way
back from notes. And you can browse to any particular page and see how
it evolved from something to nothing.

It’s just a note to myself about what this page might be about.
By clicking the
“→V2”, you move ahead to
Version 2 of that page:

New words are green, deleted words are red. This page is hard to read because the
software is making bad guesses about how the different versions fit together.
In actuality, I simply deleted my note and wrote a first version.

The final version is here. And if you have
the book, you can follow along at home to the
version that wound up in the novel:

I’m not sure what use this is to anybody, other than for exposing my writerly
fumblings in an even more humiliating manner than I’ve already done.
But it was POSSIBLE, so I have DONE IT.

To access the Source version of a page in the Machine Man serial, click
the tiny, near-invisible nut on the top-right of
any serial page. Or append “&v=1” to the
URL, if you’re that nerdy. Which, if you’ve read this far, you surely are.

See Also

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Eric Hoffman (#4259)

Location: ArizonaQuote: ""America was founded by men who understood that the threat of domestic tyranny is as great as any threat from abroad. If we want to be worthy of their legacy, we must resist the rush toward ever-increasing state control of our society." Ron Paul"Posted: 2504 days ago

Nerd.

And right up my alley.

Cameron Government (#166)

Location: melb-auQuote: "There once was a man from Nantucket"Posted: 2504 days ago

Noice.

Just needs a language variable for translations :-)

Greg (#3266)

Location: MelbourneQuote: ""when deprived of freedom the only choice is to say no", is that deep enough?"Posted: 2504 days ago

I guess that makes me a freako super-geek, but I guess I knew that.

For non super geek isn't it just taking Word's track changes to the next level?

Barrie (#5111)

Like Word's and Apple's Pages 'track changes', but I can see that this is a step further along.I wonder if this goes on in my brain, it would look a hell of a lot different of course!I got fed up with Word's track changes, it seemed to turn itself on all by itself and get in the way (clutter).

I'm writing exclusively with Pages now, nicer layout with a comments column where I can leave my noodlings and it handles styles better.

Tak (#995)

Alan W (#1427)

Awesome. What's the back end? Git, Mercurial? I love Perforce, but the new distributed ones certainly have their charms.

rachel (#4028)

Posted: 2504 days ago

this is so cool; how kind of you to share it with us! Thank you.

dabbeljuh (#4114)

Posted: 2504 days ago

your gui is better then kdiff3 ~J~

but OT aside, nice, makes total sense. While finishing my PhD thesis I tried to use a SVN for my thesis but I miserably failed. Now, as finished PhD, I try to convince professors that (online) versioning tools are better then local v1_v2_v3 docs anyway :)

TLDR: if you know stuff, you should use it ~

Electrichead (#3898)

Location: TorontoPosted: 2504 days ago

This is pretty amazing; I have to use SVN and Git for work, so I can appreciate how it tracks all those mistakes I made. But for writing, it seems a bit different, it also shows your different ideas and thought processes. Hmm, on second thought maybe writing and coding are more similar than I thought.

On a side note, do you have to add in commit messages? It would be fun to see those. Mine tend to be profanity-riddled and brief, but could be a good read.

Jay (#1892)

Location: New YorkPosted: 2504 days ago

This is great work, like buying a Blu-ray, with behind the scenes commentary. This is the first time I've noticed an author shareearly versions of his/her work. Very innovativeMax, much appreciated.

apt142 (#2526)

This is fantastic! My wife writes prose and I write code. So, there's been a number of times where this exact concept has crossed my mind. (I even explained source control to her in terms of book revisions.)

I think this could be a fantastic teaching tool to new and aspiring authors. While I'm sure everybody's approach to writing is a bit different, getting this level of detail into the process is unprecedented!

stanley becker (#5283)

Location: black holeQuote: "DON"T JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER!!"Posted: 2504 days ago

Hi Max - if you get a new better brain one day - I'm sure this review of past events would be useful in an evolutionary sense - "hey folks, this is what my old brain was like" - all the best, love Stan

Michael Lederman (#4778)

Max, What you have done is the Literary version of pulling out the baby photo album and letting us see your "child" as it grew into an adult. While the finished book was as fantastic as your other tomes, being invited to see it from birth till adulthood allows a level of intimacy not to be found anywhere else in literary history. Well done.

Joanna (#5296)

Location: Seattle, WAQuote: ""The wise man despises no one. Instead, he watches him closely and tries to discover the roots of what he sees." (Gogol, Dead Souls)"Posted: 2504 days ago

Ahh, so cool! The webgeek & literature nerds in me are rejoicing. :) Thanks for sharing!!

Dan Traeger (#2232)

Location: Kalispell, MTPosted: 2504 days ago

Okay, now all we have to do is convince a publisher to release a version of Machine Man loaded with smart phone QR Codes to the relevant pages in your RCS. It would be like buying a DVD loaded with behind the scenes features.

Max

@Electrichead:> On a side note, do you have to add in commit messages? It would be fun to see those.

No, I didn't use any commit messages, since I had no co-workers, and I didn't expect to have to back anything out (or hunt down bugs). I wrote a macro so all I needed to do was click a button in my OpenOffice doc and it would save in XML format, then a script would parse it, split it into appropriate files, and commit it to the SVN repository. If it had been a pain to commit changes, I wouldn't have done it. So I made it almost as painless as clicking "Save."

Lucy (#664)

Location: Blue MountainsPosted: 2503 days ago

This is fantastic, I never even thought of how this could apply to writing despite working with source control all day and also using Word's 'Track Changes'...Seconded on the curiosity about commit comments.Also, tags?

Adam (#24)

Alright. I was going to steal the name "Max_Barry" for my new nation on nationstates. I was strung along by a web of lies that kept saying it would be available. When the time limit was up. It was "retired". Stupid. Really stupid.

Ben (#3924)

Very cool Max. Thanks for this. I had hoped to see something like this for a long time. Again, thanks.

Chelsea (#5402)

Location: Los Angeles, CAPosted: 2497 days ago

I'm so glad you posted this! As you are one of my favorite writers, and I'm just testing the waters of novel writing, it's absolutely reassuring and encouraging to see your editing process. It reminds me that even if the first draft isn't perfect, it's not rubbish. :)

(Your first draft is WAY better than mine, but still. :P)

Kelli (#5773)

Posted: 2442 days ago

This actually helps a lot with the paper I'm writing on your expansion on Umberto Ecos position on the inventive freedom of the composer - performer relationship by collaborating with the audience to create the ultimate composition.

Thanks!

kotekzot (#5795)

Posted: 2426 days ago

Was there a particular reason you decided not to use a wiki for this, or did you just make it for fun?